


Leaving a Note

by gallifreyburning



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning





	Leaving a Note

The Doctor writes the first note two days after he burned up a sun, one day after Donna turned him down. He’s standing alone in his console room, and there’s no one to chatter at, no distraction, nothing. His ship thrums around him, familiar and eternal. 

Saying it aloud would mean he’d gone starkers, wouldn’t it? Talking to himself. He isn’t ready to hear his own voice echo emptily back at him, evidence of exactly how bleak things are. 

The blank stack of sticky-notes is in a hidden compartment on the console, kept handy for the times he needs to attach a reminder to the display panel. Intergalactic coordinates, grocery lists, indexes of his favorite words, reminders about where he’s hidden his secret stash of biscuits so Rose won’t find them.

If this isn’t something he can say aloud, it seems at least something he should make note of. The Doctor pulls out a little square stack of yellow paper and writes the words in English (not Gallifreyan, maybe because he’s on auto-pilot, maybe because he thinks she’ll be back one day to read it).

Trainers making quiet noises on the grating, he navigates the halls of his TARDIS, and this path has been walked so many times there might as well be a groove worn into the floor. It’s gravity that takes him here, the way he’s come so many times before. Except this time the pull isn’t quite as strong, his stride is slower, because she isn’t waiting inside anymore.

He stops a distance from her bedroom door, staring at the warm bronze-colored metal. The note flutters in his hand as his fingers tap absently against the sticky bit on the top of the paper.  

_I’ll move on_ , he tells himself.  _I always do. Same old life._  

With the reverence of someone approaching a shrine, he steps close enough to affix the note to the door. He doesn’t go inside — he doesn’t want to see it, her trainers under the bed, makeup table cluttered with tubes and bottles, the scent of her everywhere — but he rubs his finger across the place where the note sticks, making sure it’s secure. 

He walks away and doesn’t look back. 

It’s something his later companions — Martha, and then Donna — don’t understand, and even tease him about, his periodic stops at office supply stores in the past and the future, everywhere from Hallax IV to Surrey. The way he stands in the paper goods aisle and compares the adhesives on various brands, until he finds one with a chemical composition most compatible with the metal inside the TARDIS. 

“I’ve only ever seen you use a handful of those, Spaceman,” Donna says, snatching the bag full of yellow sticky-notes away from him as they walk out the shop door into the green sunlight of an alien world. The Doctor stops, turns his face toward the star, and takes a deep breath. “I’m beginning to think the TARDIS actually powered by Post-Its instead of alien fuel or magic or” — she waves her hand — “whatever.”

He opens his eyes, turns to look at her, and smiles a little. “I knew you’d figure it out one day, Donna. Brilliant, you are! The TARDIS is, in fact, powered by Post-Its. At least for now. Someday she might not need them anymore — she’ll gobble up interstellar dust and rift energy and that will be enough — but for now, everything’s running on little bits of yellow paper.”

She puts her arm through his. “Now tell me more about this planet with the market on it — they have Post-Its there, do they?”

“Oh, Shan Shen’s markets are  _legendary_ ,” the Doctor replies, his eyes sparkling. _”_ You’re going to  _love_  this.”


End file.
